The TV Pregnancy Twist: Love It or Hate It?

So Mindy dropped a bomb on us last week during The Mindy Project. Our favorite, fashionable OBGYN is preggers! With Danny’s baby! While we’re all for a baby Castellano (can you imagine the tiny red reading glasses?!), we couldn’t help but feel this “twist” was a little…too obvious? The surprise pregnancy plotline has been done in countless other TV shows – sometimes as a jump-the-shark moment (read: the writers have run out of ideas) and other times as a way to write an actress’ real-life pregnancy into the show. Either way, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. And fans generally love it or hate it – no inbetween.

Mindy’s situation is unique because, as Mindy Kaling told EW.com, the writers have been talking about this pregnancy storyline since season one. The unplanned pregnancy was indeed planned. And, Kaling said, it will only motivate Mindy more in her career. Smart, successful, ambitious Mindy isn’t going away, folks! We’re tentatively hopeful it’ll all work out – that is, as soon as she tells Danny.

On the flip side, another Fox comedy, New Girl, has decided not to write Zooey Deschanel’s real-life pregnancy into the show. Thank God for small miracles. Can you imagine all of them in that loft with a BABY? Though we have to admit Schmidt would make an amazing godfather.

And now we present some shows that have handled the pregnancy twist with varying degrees of success.

When January Jones became pregnant in real life Mad Men didn’t write it into the show, instead they made Betty get fat. It was hilarious – and also a really elaborate way to hide an on-screen pregnancy. We kinda miss Fat Betty.

Probably one of the worst instances of trying to hide a pregnancy on television. It was so obvious Leah Remini was preggers that they should have just written it into the show. It’s almost like they didn’t even try to conceal it!